Posts tagged with "weather"

happy child

The sum­mer start­ed unevent­ful­ly, with a mix of rainy weath­er and cold nights. I long for after­noons in the bright sun, Lou Reed dur­ing his Velvet Underground years croon­ing to me over small speak­ers, with noth­ing bet­ter to do than wip­ing the con­den­sa­tion off a cold drink. It’s a life that does­n’t seem far away, and yet a life I nev­er imag­ine mak­ing for myself. I always think it’ll just hap­pen some day, that things will fall into place if I can take care of every­thing else.

Friday Night Magic

It’s okay to be OCD about how your cards are orga­nized as long as every­one else is.

Aaron has me over for din­ner every week with Karen and the two kids. It’s a rit­u­al he has yet to break, even though he told me he did­n’t want it to be a cal­en­dar event when I asked him if we could do some­thing on a reg­u­lar basis1. Every Wednesday he leaves work ear­ly to let me in the house, and makes up the time by work­ing longer hours on oth­er days, a sac­ri­fice that means more to me than he’ll ever under­stand, and some­thing I nev­er had to ask him to do. It’s nice to be able to look for­ward to reg­u­lar plans, and some­thing I share only with him that makes me feel like I belong.

About as often are Magic nights with Trolley and Steph, and these invari­ably include some­thing deli­cious for din­ner, when Steph takes the culi­nary arts to a whole new lev­el. They take care of me with food and con­ver­sa­tion and boost­er packs that they nev­er let me pay for. I’m sure I owe a great deal of my san­i­ty to them, when Magic was the only thing that took my mind off the fact that every­thing fell apart.

pretty wolf

Nobody fucks Pretty Wolf.

In between are things less fre­quent, but no less impor­tant. Musical projects with Jesse or Seth that give me the kind of goals and pur­pose I’ve been look­ing for. Sessions with Lisa, when we get to share the things we don’t share with any­one else. Hangouts with Tiana to debrief on our ever-chang­ing lives, and to give each oth­er advice or a pair of ears. Dinners with Heather G when I need my dose of opti­mism and adven­tur­ism. Not to men­tion the peo­ple who send me mes­sages of check up on how I’m doing when they can’t be here for me phys­i­cal­ly.

big dog and two girls

HOW ARE YOU SO BIG

It feels strange to be busy again. To be pro­duc­tive, and social, and to need days off when I’m not even employed.

Not that it’s been an attempt to stay occu­pied; more like mak­ing sure my needs are being met. That I have ful­fill­ing rela­tion­ships that pro­vide me with what I need, involv­ing peo­ple who make me feel hope­ful and worth­while and con­nect­ed and nur­tured and pro­tect­ed and sat­is­fied and accept­ed and under­stood and val­i­dat­ed and loved and con­fi­dent and safe and in con­trol.

  1. Only because it’s some­thing he want­ed to keep casu­al, where nei­ther per­son felt any pres­sure. [↩]

a change of seasons

We’re doing this a lit­tle dif­fer­ent­ly tonight.

I decid­ed that I don’t spend enough time in my liv­ing room. I’m always at the com­put­er in the cor­ner of the bed­room. It’s my crawl­space, my cozy nook, thanks to the dark­ness and a decent set of speak­ers. Then I go to sleep on the couch in the liv­ing room.

But I used to spend nights writ­ing in this liv­ing room. Usually on the ground with my back to a patch of wall between the win­dow (open, of course) and the back door. Or with a mug of tea at the din­ing table. Nights full of warmth, and emo­tion, and clar­i­ty. I miss that. Back when I could still write about love. Back when I had love to write about.

Violet

But I’m here now in my blan­kets with my lap­top. On the TV is The Brown Bunny in all it’s grainy old-school glo­ry, and Vincent Gallo, that sexy moth­er­fuck­er. I wish I could be as cocky. The sec­ond time through the movie you real­ize that all the girls are named after flow­ers.

kiss

Sunday night feels like it’s been alter­nat­ing between snow and rain all week­end. As per tra­di­tion, I’m see­ing how long I can go with­out turn­ing on the fur­nace before it gets too cold. I’ve nev­er mind­ed the chill; it only makes blan­kets and hood­ies all the more com­fort­able. My cat tends to be a lot more cud­dlier too, and aggres­sive even, in where she plants her­self next to me.

I’ve been wait­ing for the snow to come. Even with the has­sle and the mess and the bit­ing cold, it’s still worth it to wake up to a white world.

bodies

 

I’ve been drawn to pho­tog­ra­phy again. With video, an impor­tant moment can be eas­i­ly lost, but with pho­tog­ra­phy the view­er has no choice but to con­front the sin­gle frame pre­sent­ed to them. There’s also some­thing about a lack of con­text. A pho­to­graph is more con­ducive to let­ting an audi­ence won­der what has hap­pened to lead up to the image, and what hap­pened after.

The prob­lem is that I don’t have any­thing to pho­to­graph any­more. I feel so unin­spired. I nev­er go out. Sometimes I won­der if I’m get­ting more and more anti-social. I work from home for four days a week now. Every time I think I should pick up the phone and call some­one to catch up, I nev­er do.

I’m start­ing to feel less and less guilty about it. I can’t tell if I’m get­ting com­fort­able, or just lazy.

Two (and a half) Days in St. Louis

Day one

At secu­ri­ty, I’m select­ed ran­dom­ly for a screen­ing. The guard asks my age. “Twenty…”, I begin, try­ing to remem­ber if I’m 27, 28, or 29. “Twenty. Okay.”, he says, cut­ting me off. Somehow, he believes I look near­ly a decade younger than I am. For two days, I’m packed light, with no checked bag­gage. In my rush, I for­get to get some American mon­ey. This wor­ries me.

Ottawa airport

Plane in Ottawa

Continue read­ing “Two (and a half) Days in St. Louis”…

When Will The Devil Take Me?

It has­n’t stopped rain­ing since I woke up this morn­ing, and now it’s dark, with only the street­lamps and their reflec­tions in the pud­dles for light. It’s cold out­side.

This is a good thing.

I feel like the epony­mous char­ac­ter in Onegin. Sitting on the bal­cony in the dead of win­ter, wait­ing for a let­ter. His ser­vant, hand­ing him a stemmed glass of vod­ka, asks him to come inside because it’s cold. “I like the cold” he replies, as he resigns him­self to his fate.

He walks down the streets of Saint Petersburg, and his motif comes in on the piano, fol­lowed by strings. FADE TO BLACK.

A sto­ic face to the world. Can I say sto­ic? I like sto­ic.

These titles are get­ting hard­er and hard­er to write.

And I want to say that I’m melan­choly, but I’m not. But I’m not gid­dy either. My emo­tions aren’t black and white. They’re a mix­ture of ups and down. I don’t know what to say when I don’t know what I’m feel­ing or what comes next.

I’m just wait­ing. Passive. Yielding.

Hong Kong Humidity

Difference in Hong Kong and Ottawa weather

One of the notable dif­fer­ences here is the humid­i­ty. The pages of my book are begin­ning to wrin­kle. Towels don’t dry when they’re hung on a line. Even though it’s 20°C out­side, it feels more like 15°C because it’s so damp. Humidity is some­thing that Hong Kong is known for, as it’s sur­round­ed by water and filled with tall build­ings. It makes me won­der how peo­ple deal with mold in their hous­es.

Ironically, it “rained” two days in a row, but the rain was so weak that I had to ask oth­ers if they felt the droplets. Very dif­fer­ent from Ottawa, where rain­fall goes beyond obvi­ous, and can last for days on end.